Operationalizing Migration Gender Issues:

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Operationalizing Migration Gender Issues
Evidence and Policies
Andrew R. Morrison, PREM Mirja Sjöblom,
DECRG
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OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION

• 1. Background to analytical program on gender and
  migration
• 2. Presentation of forthcoming volume Women in
  International Migration
• 3. Future directions for research and policy
• 4. Operational entry points
• 5. Where do we go from here? Your input

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TABLE OF CONTENTS WOMEN IN INTERNATIONAL
MIGRATION

• I ANALYSIS AND DATA WHERE DO WE STAND?
• 1. Gender in Economic Research on International
  Migration and Its Impacts A Critical Review
• 2. Trends in International migration is there a
  feminization of migration flows?
• II. DETERMINANTS OF MIGRATION AND REMITTANCES
• 3. Gender and the Determinants of International
  Migration from Rural Mexico Over Time
• 4. Gender-Specific Determinants of Remittances
  Differences in Structure and Motivation
• III. IMPACT OF MIGRATION AND REMITTANCES
• 5. Gender and the Impacts of International
  Migration Evidence from Rural Mexico
• 6. The impact of remittances and gender on
  household expenditure patterns Evidence from
  Ghana
• IV. LABOR MARKET PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN MIGRANTS
• 7. Immigrant Womens Participation and
  Performance in the U.S. Labor Market
• V. LOOKING AHEAD
• 6. Future Directions For Research And Policy

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CHAPTER 1

• Gender in Economic Research on International
  Migration and Its Impacts A Critical Review
• Lisa Pfeiffer, Susan Richter, Peri Fletcher and
  J. Edward Taylor
• Literature review of economic research
• Main messages
• Major determinants of migrants are likely to
  differ between men and women
• hence, it is not suffice to include a dummy
  variable for gender
• To date almost no research on gender selectivity
  into migration, gender specific impact of
  migration, gendered remittance behavior etc.
• Few existing studies show structural differences
  between men and women
• Future focus gender as a central issue for
  understanding migration
• Support this work with new surveys with gender
  focus
• gender breakdown remitters, migrants, migrant
  network, respondent

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CHAPTER 2

• Trends in International migration is there a
  feminization of migration flows?
• Juan Carlos Guzmán
• Presents sex-disaggregated data on flows of
  migration to major destination countries
• Data Australia (1995-2004), Canada (1981-2001),
  Europe (1985-99) USA (1970-2000)
• Main messages
• Sex-disaggregated gender data hard to come by,
  inconsistent and needs to be improved!
• There has not been a significant feminization of
  migration flows
• Women have made up almost half of the worlds
  migrant population since the 1960s (stock data
  46.7 percent in 1960, 49.6 percent in 2005)
• Male-dominate flows Africa, South Asia and the
  Middle East
• Female-dominated flows East Asia and Pacific,
  Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America
  Caribbean

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Gender composition of migrant flows to OECD by
origin regions
Male-dominated flows Female-dominated
flows
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CHAPTER 3

• Gender and the Determinants of International
  Migration from Rural Mexico Over Time
• Susan Richter and J. Edward Taylor
• Mexico National Rural Household Survey used in FE
  and RE models
• Main messages
• Women are significantly less likely than men to
  migrate abroad, except for the case of highly
  educated women
• Networks tend to be gender- and sector-specific
• Most policy and macroeconomic variables are
  insignificant in explaining migration
• However, increased boarder expenditures in the
  U.S. significantly deter migration by women but
  does not have a significant impact on male
  migration
• Overall the determinants of Mexico-to-U.S.
  migration and their changes over time are gender
  specific.

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CHAPTER 4

• Gender-Specific Determinants of Remittances
  Differences in Structure and Motivation
• Manuel Orozco, B. Lindsay Lowell, and Johanna
  Schneider
• New data on remittances, channeled through formal
  channels, collected in major metropolitan areas
  in Germany, the U.K. and the U.S.
• Main messages
• Female remitters from most countries (except for
  Mexico and the Caribbean) remit smaller amounts
  of money than men
• In total, women remit greater amounts to distant
  family members
• They also remit more over time
• Female remittances tend to be spent on food and
  clothing, while male remittances tend to be spent
  for business purposes and to pay off loans
• Overall, results indicate that female and male
  remittances behavior seem to differ

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CHAPTER 5

• Gender and the Impacts of International
  Migration Evidence from Rural Mexico
• Lisa Pfeiffer and J. Edward Taylor
• Same data as in chapter 3 in a probit model, IV-
  historical migration rates by gender
• Main messages
• Strikingly different impacts of male and female
  migration on production activities
• Impacts of male migration on household
  production are negative, while those of female
  migration are positive or zero
• Households receive more remittances from female
  migrants compared to male migrants
• Households with female remitters spend
  significantly less on education but more on
  health than otherwise similar households

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CHAPTER 6

• The impact of remittances and gender on household
  expenditure patterns Evidence from Ghana
• Juan Carlos Guzmán, Andrew R. Morrison, Mirja
  Sjöblom
• a) Does the sex of the household (HH) head and
  remittances matter for HH expenditure
  allocations? b) Does the sex of the remitter
  matters for HH expenditure allocations?
• GLSS 1998/99, fractional logit model
• Main messages
• International remittances have a significant
  impact on spending on food, cd goods, housing,
  health and other goods in female-headed
  households (FHH), but not in male-headed
  households (MHH)
• Internal remittances have a significant impact
  on expenditure share to health and education in
  FHH, but no impact on MHH
• HH receiving from female remitters have a
  different expenditure pattern than those
  receiving from male remitters once we control for
  the remitters ability to monitor
• HH with female remitters spend more on health
  and other goods and less on food

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CHAPTER 7

• Immigrant Womens Participation and Performance
  in the U.S. Labor Market
• Çaglar Özden and Ileana Cristina Neagu
• US Census data from 1990 and 2000
• What factors influence performance of female
  migrants in US labor market?
• Performance measures wage income and average
  occupation requirement in the migrants
  occupation
• Main messages
• Significant variation of performance of migrants
  from different countries and by educational level
• Participation is lowest for migrants from South
  Asia, MENA while it is highest for migrants from
  Europe, East and South Asia and Africa
• Migrants from Latin America have the lowest
  wages
• Placed in higher skilled jobs Europeans and
  migrants from EN-speaking developing countries
• Placed in lower skilled jobs Latin Americans and
  Eastern Europeans
• Most important determinants of participation
  Edu level, yrs in US, children, martial status

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CHAPTER 8

• Future Directions For Research And Policy
• Andrew R. Morrison and Maurice Schiff
• Summaries most important findings of the volume
• Explores how these are related to policy
• Identifies some of the burning research and
  policy issues in this field

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FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH AND POLICY

• Migration and empowerment of women
• Human development impacts of
• migration (fertility, child welfare)
• Trafficking of women
• Brain drain
• Mode IV and liberalization of service
• sectors
• Better measurement of migration flows

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Migration and empowerment of women

• To date, work almost exclusively qualitative
• Operationalization of empowerment difficult
  core related concepts include
• options, choice, control and power
• ability to make and influence decisions
• Research questions
• Impact of gender equality (beyond wage equality)
  on migration flows in origin and destination
• Impact of migration on womens empowerment

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Human development impacts of migration
(fertility, child welfare)

• Poorer or better educational and other
  developmental outcomes for children income vs.
  parenting effects
• The accepted wisdom
• "If one or both parents emigrate, household
  and child-rearing responsibilities fall to older
  adults, second or third degree relatives, or even
  brothers or sisters. In any of these scenarios
  there is a real or potential risk that the
  children will not receive the same health and
  nutritional care, and protection against abuse
  and exploitation, that they would have received
  from their parents,"
• Nils Kastberg, UNICEF regional director for LAC

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• But knowledge about impacts of absent parents
  only for a few countries
• (El Salvador, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines,
  Thailand)
• Most show better educational outcomes for
  children of migrants similar other developmental
  outcomes (pyschological probs, drugs/alcohol,
  premarital sex)
• Must be disaggregated by identity of absent
  parent(s) and age/sex of child left behind
• Policy angle Sri Lankan oddities

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• Sri Lanka govt to restrict migration of mothers
• Thursday, March 8, 2007, 1402 GMT, ColomboPage
  News Desk, Sri Lanka.
• Colombo The Sri Lankan government plans to limit
  migration of mothers in
• order to ensure the welfare of their children.
• It is clear from available statistics and
  various reports that children of many
• mothers who migrate, especially for employment to
  the Middle East and other
• countries, have become helpless and vulnerable,
  and lack nutrition and health-
• care, Cabinet spokesperson Minister Anura
  Priyadharshana Yapa said.
• Attempting to find a solution, the Sri Lankan
  Cabinet has granted its
• approval to prohibit of migration for employment
  by mothers with children
• under five years of age. In the case of mothers
  with children over five years,
• for the purpose of registration at the Foreign
  Employment Bureau, a report
• will be required with a recommendation from a
  committee headed by the
• Divisional Secretary certifying that appropriate
  arrangements have been
• made with regard to the children. This committee
  can include a Women

courtesy D. Ratha
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Human development impactscontinued

• Fertility
• Good existing work on impact on fertility of
  migrant women (selection, spousal separation,
  income effectssee Lindstrom, 2002
  Brockerhoff/Yang 1994)
• More work needed on impact on fertility in SOURCE
  countries. Fargues (2007 on Morocco and Turkey
  vs. Egypt) shows that destination matters.
• Does sex composition of flows matter as well?
• Family cohesion
• Informal divorce (Ecuador and Philipines, but
  mostly anecdotal)

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Trafficking of women

• No chapter in the migration volume on
  traffickingand no accident
• But huge policy issueupcoming Bank policy brief
  to explore Banks comparative advantage (HDNSP)
• Analytical work EWS and impact evaluation?

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The Brain drain

• Sex-disaggregated extenstion to Docquier and
  Marfouk DEC database
• Brain drain and productivity growth (Schiff and
  Wang, 2007)gendered extension?

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Mode IV and liberalization of service sectors

• Temporary migration may have a series of
  advantages for both sending and receiving
  countries (vis-à-vis permanent migration)
• On the research side, two important gender
  issues
• Sex/occupational composition of Mode IV migrants
• Over-staying (sex and occupational composition,
  effectiveness of incentive schemes, etc.)

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Better measurement of migration flows

• Estimation of share of women in migration flows
  sensitive to type of data used
• Using Mexican 2000 census data 23
• Using U.S. 2000 census data 40
• Why does this matter?
• Undercounting leads to biased estimates of total
  flows
• Using destination censuses, leads to biased
  estimates of cross-country distribution of
  migrants if there are differences in
  sex-sequencing or illegality of moves among
  countries

Ibarraran and Lubotsky, 2005
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OPERATIONAL ENTRY POINTS

• maximizing the development impact of migration
• Anti-poverty impact of remittances womens
  access to low-cost remittance channels and
  control over remittances (financial literacy,
  etc.)
• Financial instruments that earmark expenditures
  (Banco Solidario)
• Temporary migration (Mode IV)

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social safety nets for children left behind

• Sri Lankan solution not optimal.
• Community and school-based programmingbut be
  clear what is the problem?
• CCTs targeting households with children left
  behind (again, whats the problem and is response
  non-distortionary?)

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trafficking

• Pre-movement (prevention)
• Movement (border controls)
• Post-movement/exploitation (i.d. and outreach)
• Post-exploitation (repatriation)
• Areas of Bank comparative advantage
• Source Clert and Gomart, 2005

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WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE YOUR INPUT

• Peer reviewers for upcoming volume
• Thoughts on priorities for new analytical and
  operational work

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THANK YOU !